A life some might mistake for glamorous
the years in Malibu
the Hollywood connections
but you were never taken in by surfaces
and although early on you wrote for Vogue
it wasn't fashion you were after
something else
something truer
darker and more nuanced
and so you traced in prose
our country's underbelly
and saw prophetically just how fragile
are the bonds that hold our human world in place
the ties that keep the body politic from falling
into such chaos as the violence you witnessed
in El Salvador
and then the ways that grief and loss
when they hit home can change
the very nature of reality
as we experience it
courageously you shared
with us the blows you suffered
with your husband's death
and then your daughter's
and through it all you stayed the course
true to the work
you'd chosen from an the start
to write with clear unflinching honesty
the world you found reflected
in a mind as bright and sharp-edged
as the facets of a diamond
goodbye and many thanks Joan Didion